Fantasy Baseball: Top 50 value keepers for 2026, using last year's ADP as a guide
If where you drafted a player determines what you keep him for, this list is for you
By
Scott White
•
2 min read
I've been going about this all wrong.
In my attempts to make this article all things to all people over the past dozen years or so, it's effectively become a confused mishmash of early-round studs and thrifty gambles, making it of no use to anyone.
So to clear things up, both for myself and for you, my goal here is to highlight value in leagues where a keeper's cost is tied to where he's drafted. That isn't all Fantasy Baseball leagues, of course. It isn't even all keeper leagues. But if it's your league, you know it because you've spent the past few months debating whether to keep Nick Pivetta with a 15th-round pick or Kyle Stowers with a 20th-round pick.
Or something like that, anyway.
And it's in that spirit that I've decided to omit from this list any early-rounders who wouldn't be kept at a discount. They may be the best keepers even at the cost of a first- or second-round pick, but they take up valuable real estate on a list with only 50 names. And do you really need me to tell you to keep Bobby Witt? It just makes for a boring list.
To me, there are 18 early-rounders who are such obvious keepers, regardless of cost, that ranking them is a waste. So instead, I'll list them off here:
Aaron Judge, OF, NYY | Corbin Carroll, OF, ARI | Paul Skenes, SP, PIT |
Shohei Ohtani, DH/P, LAD | Kyle Tucker, OF, FA | Francisco Lindor, SS, NYM |
Bobby Witt, SS, KC | Tarik Skubal, SP, DET | Fernando Tatis, OF, SD |
Juan Soto, OF, NYM | Garrett Crochet, SP, BOS | Gunnar Henderson, BAL |
Jose Ramirez, 3B, CLE | Julio Rodriguez, OF, SEA | Jackson Chourio, OF, MIL |
Ronald Acuna, OF, ATL | Elly De La Cruz, SS, CIN | Vladimir Guerrero, 1B, TOR |
You simply can't expect to do better with a first- or second-round pick than these 18, particularly given the likelihood that all of them are kept. These are foundational players, the caliber that we're all futilely trying to acquire midseason, so if you get your hands on one, you better hold onto him like grim death.
Others like Kyle Schwarber, Jazz Chisholm, Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Trea Turner, Pete Alonso and Ketel Marte are borderline cases. I can't say for sure that I'd forfeit my second-round pick for them, but it's close. Meanwhile, players like Wyatt Langford, James Wood and Riley Greene may be worth keeping, even if not at a discount, because of their youth and perceived upside. It's a judgment call.
But the bottom line is that you're not likely to be keeping any of the aforementioned players at any sort of a discount, which makes them ill-suited for this list.
So how do I gauge the extent of a player's discount? Well, I look at where he was drafted on average in 2025. It's not a perfect gauge. His average draft position may not be where you yourself drafted him. Meanwhile, some highly drafted player in 2025 may still carry some rollover discount from a previous year in your particular league, which I obviously can't account for here. So try to be understanding. If nothing else, you could think of this list as a fun exercise in identifying the 50 players who've gained the most value from a year ago.
Note: Last year's ADP data for Roto comes from FantasyPros while last year's data for H2H (points) comes from CBS Sports.
Top 50 value keepers for 2026
Some may quibble about the strikeout rate, but when a guy speeds through the entire minor league system in just 33 games and then goes on to have one of the best rookie seasons in recent memory, I try not to overthink it.
| ||||
Oh no, he won't be playing in a minor league park next year! So what? He just validated his top prospect credentials by hitting the second-most home runs ever by a player 21 or younger.
| ||||
Raleigh was drafted to be a 30-homer catcher and became a 60-homer catcher, so anywhere he lands in between would make him a value keeper.
| ||||
The No. 1 shortstop in points and No. 3 in categories leagues this past year is sure to come with a dose of skepticism given the unexpectedness of it all, but locking in the 26-year-old at a late-round cost could pay off for years to come if his breakthrough proves to be halfway viable.
| ||||
We can wring our hands over his poor finish, but he still went 30/30 in his first full year starting and may never slip into the middle rounds again.
| ||||
If initial returns are any indication, those who had the foresight to draft the game's top hitting prospect before his debut may have secured a steep discount for years to come.
| ||||
Priced like a mid-rotation innings eater coming into the season, Sanchez took a turn for the studly with a jump in velocity, and his control and ground-ball skills are so good that he seems about as safe as you could ask of a starting pitcher.
| ||||
With a big jump in exit velocity, Turang now looks like a 20-homer threat in addition to being a 40-steal threat, which sets him up to be an early-rounder at arguably the weakest position in Fantasy.
| ||||
Durability was main thing holding Woo back, but after throwing the 11th-most innings in 2025, he has the look of an ace who might only cost you a middle-round pick to keep.
| ||||
Brown is regarded similarly to Woo, but he's a year older, a little more expensive to keep, and at greater risk of a WHIP increase.
| ||||
Neto was only so affordable in 2025 because the start of his season was delayed by shoulder surgery, but instead of struggling to regain his form, as feared, he reaffirmed his standing as a power/speed threat at a premium position.
| ||||
Goodman was supposed to be a Quadruple-A-type all-or-nothing hitter who couldn't really hack it behind the plate, but the Rockies entrusted him with catcher duties from the start and watched him mash for six months straight.
| ||||
After a massive breakout that still fell well short of the numbers Statcast projected for him, Rice is the most darling of picks in Fantasy right now, and frankly, that might be the case even if he didn't eke out catcher eligibility for 2026.
| ||||
Bradish came back from Tommy John surgery looking every bit like the Cy Young contender he was before it, recording 13.2 K/9 across six starts.
| ||||
Though Smith had the look of an ace reliever from the moment he set foot in Cleveland, no one suspected he'd get a chance to close with Emmanuel Clase being entrenched there. That turned out to be a failure of imagination.
| ||||
You might think that in the sort of keeper leagues we're discussing here, some participants would have the foresight to draft a 22-year-old phenom on the mend from Tommy John surgery, knowing they could lock him in at a discount if he returns no worse for wear. But the ADP data doesn't reflect that.
| ||||
Burns hadn't even made his minor league debut yet at the start of 2025, so you can understand why he went undrafted in leagues where only a handful of players are kept. He quickly emerged as the top pitching prospect in baseball, though, and shows unbelievable upside as a bat-misser.
| ||||
Langeliers seemed like a one-dimensional hitter better suited as a second catcher in Fantasy, but a big reduction in strikeout rate rounded out his profile and now makes him an obvious discount at the point where he was drafted last year.
| ||||
Luzardo is both younger than you may think and better than you may think. Take out two disastrous starts last year when he was obviously tipping his pitches, and he's left with a 3.03 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and 10.6 K/9.
| ||||
Greene comes in a little lower than you might expect because the discount is less, particularly if there's a two- or three-round markup in your league, but he's proven to be an ace when healthy.
| ||||
It's a shame he's not eligible at second base anymore, but Garcia still contributes to batting average and stolen bases in a way few third basemen do. The Royals just made a big investment in him with a five-year deal.
| ||||
Pena seemed to max out his offsensive potential in 2025, elevating him from a borderline starter to a surefire starter in most Fantasy formats, but he's already 28 and may have only a couple more years at his apex.
| ||||
Buxton reminded us how good he can be when he stays relatively healthy, placing as a top 10 outfielder with a combined 59 home runs and stolen bases, but even at a steep discount, his age and health history are working against him.
| ||||
I'll be the first to admit I thought Rogers was done as a Fantasy asset, but he regained his velocity and command after a couple of injury-plagued years and went on to deliver a 1.81 ERA. It was too good to be true, obviously, but when the cost is so low, the glass is half full.
| ||||
On the one hand, Pivetta's first foray into a pitcher's park was the smashing success so many hoped it would be. On the other hand, his strikeout rate hit its lowest point in three years, and he's about to turn 33.
| ||||
Soderstrom's breakout season was a disjointed one, giving him the appearance of a slugger early and a batting average standout late, but the overall takeaway should be that he's on a positive trajectory for a 24-year-old.
| ||||
Though Ramirez's slash line was a little underwhelming, the power/speed combo is refreshing for a catcher, and the Statcast data suggests he left plenty of meat on the bone.
| ||||
Baldwin flew under the radar as a prospect despite some impressive underlying data and revealed himself to be a true hitting specimen as a rookie, just with the misfortune of playing for a team with another quality catcher.
| ||||
McLean gave pitching his undivided attention for the first time in 2025 and pretty much dominated from the jump, a trend that continued during his eight-start trial in the majors. He's a bit more contact-oriented than we'd prefer in Fantasy and also has come control issues to sort out.
| ||||
Anyone who followed the postseason knows all about Yesavage's over-the-top delivery and the nasty splitter that results from it. His arsenal isn't as varied as McLean's, but he has more strikeout upside.
| ||||
Another 2025 call-up who wasn't on anyone's radar at the start of the year, Schlittler got more run than McLean and Yesavage and was working six innings with regularity by the end.
| ||||
At a position as weak as second base, you'll take Keaschall at this extreme discount, hoping he grows into more power a la Brice Turang. But his contact skills and base-stealing are what's propelling him now, which makes for a modest ceiling.
| ||||
Misiorowski came on like a freight train with his 102 mph fastball, earning an All-Star nod after just five starts, but efficiency issues plagued him later, which suggests he may not be as bankable in the short-term as the McLean/Yesavage/Schlittler trio.
| ||||
Chandler's Triple-A performance in 2025 was so uneven that it's hard to know exactly what we're getting in 2026, but his control problems disappeared completely upon reaching the majors in late August, giving him a case for being the game's best pitching prospect still.
| ||||
The time to invest in a prospect in leagues where only a handful of players are kept (not full Dynasty, in other words) is when he has an open runway but hasn't made good on his potential yet. That's where Basallo is right now.
| ||||
How keepable Duran is depends partly on how scarce saves are in your league, but in a typical 12-team 5x5 context, he's likely to go off the board 4-5 rounds earlier than he did last year, owing to the fact that he's no longer with a team that prefers to mix and match in the ninth.
| ||||
The payoff here is sure to be short-term simply by virtue of him being 36, but what Springer did as a 35-year-old, after so much of the Fantasy Baseball world had written him off, was awe-inspiring. For as little as it would take to keep him, you have to run it back.
| ||||
Like Springer, Woodruff was similarly written off, but less because of his age (32) than the nature of a shoulder surgery that cost him 3 mph off his fastball. You wouldn't know it by his performance, which included a career-high strikeout rate.
| ||||
Stowers was presumed to be just a throw-in the deal that also sent Connor Norby to the Marlins, having already missed his chance at major league glory as a 27-year-old, but lo and behold, he became an All-Star -- and with data that mostly backs up the top-line numbers.
| ||||
We've been faked out by Torkelson before, but he is a former No. 1 overall pick who did show marked improvement against fastballs in 2025, in addition to returning to the 30-homer threshold.
| ||||
Some might prefer Busch to Torkelson -- and I agree he's the better hitter of the two -- but he's also two years older, has a slightly higher keeper cost, and is still forced to sit against lefties more often than I'd like.
| ||||
Lodolo took a big leap in 2025, managing to stay healthy for 150 innings while becoming one of the game's best control pitchers. What's most exciting, though, is how his swinging-strike rate spiked to 16 percent over the final three months.
| ||||
Pages is virtually automatic as a late-round keeper given that he just had a combined 41 homers and steals as a 24-year-old. But I'm not convinced that he's actually good, and his disappearance in the postseason spoke to those concerns.
| ||||
I am convinced that Sheehan is actually good, as evidenced by his consistently stellar swinging-strike rate. But I'm less convinced that the Dodgers will ever integrate him into the rotation fully, and his role in the postseason spoke to those concerns.
| ||||
There are reasons to believe Williams' 2025 breakthrough was phony baloney -- you can start with the ERA estimators, which are all a full run higher than his ERA -- but his second-half performance I think paints a clearer picture of the progress he made. The discount seems big enough to earn him a spot here.
| ||||
If you drafted Bieber in a keeper league in 2025, it was likely with the forethought of a keeper discount in 2026, and I'm not here to rain on your parade. But he wasn't as dominant as hoped when he finally returned from Tommy John surgery in August and now has the specter of a lingering forearm issue.
| ||||
The expectation heading into 2025 was that Chapman would be a part-time closer -- and maybe not for long -- but a tighter grip led to markedly improved control and the best season of what may be a Hall of Fame career. Shame he's going to be 38.
| ||||
The difficulty in anointing Wilson a keeper, regardless of the discount, is that the upside is severely limited for a hitter with fringy power and almost no base-stealing ability. But as long as his hit tool remains at the top of the scales, he'll be startable, at least.
| ||||
Though his minor league numbers were kind of interesting, Marsee wasn't supposed to be a big deal when the Marlins called him up in August, and notably, that ridiculous first month in the majors was followed by a rocky September. Is his Fantasy intrigue built on small-sample chicanery?
| ||||
Bubic's transition back to the rotation, with his improved velocity and overhauled arsenal, went about as well as anyone could have hoped for, except that he missed the final two months with a rotator cuff strain. He's good, but if there are doubts about his durability, he may not be the best use of one of your few keeper slots.
| ||||
